...strewth...is that the time?
I should have that tattooed on my forehead these days....sit comfortably next the the "667" (yeah, never any good at maths..forgot to carry the 2)
currently studying for lemme see...1,2....7 exams I think, and it's going realy good....all I need to do now is squeeze 27 hours out of a 12 hour day.
and theres heaps of things I'd rather do right now, seriously....well, even if I didn't have the study thing...finally got round to hooking up my Xbox with DSL linux on it...*nix on the telly is odd to see, and then theres the collection of CSI episodes slowly piling up, and the Visteon is still there, but needing people on the weekends, which is when I can't go so I'll have to get some leafletting in and other peripheral stuff. Talking of which, hope to be distributing leaflets tomorrow for theBloomsbury Living Wages Coalition May Day (1st of May) demonstration. ...cue explanatory text bit.....
"May 1st -demonstrate for the living wage in all Bloomsbury Colleges
The Bloomsbury Living Wage Campaign is calling on students, lecturers, cleaners, catering staff and other university workers to demonstrate on 1st May- international workers day- and demand the London living wage for all staff at Bloomsbury colleges.
Assemble: Midday
Location: main steps, SOAS, 10 Thornhaugh St. Central London.
The London Living Wage (LLW) is a minimum wage and conditions package established by the GLA, which takes into account the area-specific costs of living in London. It has been calculated carefully to ensure the minimum conditions that allow a worker in the city to provide a decent standard of living for themselves and their family.
After much campaigning by staff and students, Birkbeck management recently agreed to pay its cleaning and catering staff the living wage rate of £7.45 an hour, following the example of SOAS. The LSE and Queen Mary have also introduced this minimum pay. But many of our universities continue to pay highly exploitative wages often as low as the minimum wage of £5.73. Many university workers are forced to work unsociable hours, beginning their shifts early in the mornings and working at weekends just to make ends meet. And even in those universities that have adopted the £7.45 an hour wage, other important aspects of the LLW package still have not been introduced (including union rights and decent sick and holiday pay.)
Those mainly-migrant workers who prepare our food and make our buildings fit for purpose are as essential in providing a high class education to students as all other staff and deserve the same rights to basic human dignity. If cleaners and caterers were employed directly, as opposed to outsourced to subcontracters, and paid even the lowest grade pay, they would be earning significantly more than the LLW minimum.
We are calling on Bloomsbury campus universities to change their employment policies immediately and treat the cleaners, caterers and security staff with the respect they deserve!
We also believe international workers day is an appropriate day to demand this, as it helps recognise the increasing contribution that migrant workers are making to the city’s economy and society.
The Bloomsbury living wage campaign is supported by activists from UCL, SOAS, Birkbeck, LSHTM, Senate House, and Institute of Education
Join us!"
...where was I? Oh yes, time.....had one of those weekends where I could have used 128 hours easily.....spent Saturday over in Docklands Light Railway territory sorting out a friends laptop, which was ok, good to spend sometime with him as he's an old friend off the Lane...only, it meant I missed the Visteon demo the same day. Then Sunday was buggered up, as I was sposed to go and help celebrate a friends 40th, and someone I've not seen in a long time, and other folks also seldom seen these past few years too, only had family stuff to handle (well, Denise's family which makes em mine, though I do pick and choose which ones I like...). So, I had to send my apologies at the last minute, hopefully be able to hook up sometime if only to give her the pressie I got.
Sunday night was stop! sit down! lets get a plan together! thing....
With some very fine tuning, and almost but not quite major habit changes here's hoping the pieces fall into place and I have a simple honest to goodness no fuss holiday....somewhere green with no mobile coverage and not toooooo much rain. It would be heaven to spend a week or two away from all this that and the other with Denise, maybe get some proper writing done the old fashioned way....pencil and paper style ....I feel some inspirationing will arrive and quietly prod my cerebelum into gear......yes, that would be nice.....
Sunday night was stop! sit down! lets get a plan together! thing....
With some very fine tuning, and almost but not quite major habit changes here's hoping the pieces fall into place and I have a simple honest to goodness no fuss holiday....somewhere green with no mobile coverage and not toooooo much rain. It would be heaven to spend a week or two away from all this that and the other with Denise, maybe get some proper writing done the old fashioned way....pencil and paper style ....I feel some inspirationing will arrive and quietly prod my cerebelum into gear......yes, that would be nice.....
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